The Secret Life of Grief

I am grieving.  I have been in the mode of grief for almost a year.  It's not something you can see by looking at me.  It's not even something you'll hear in most of the conversations I have.  But it's there. I feel it.  It takes up space in my life. In my body. In my heart. Grief has kept my heart softer, more open.  Grief has slowed me down, caused me to pause more often, to reflect on things I would otherwise hurry past.  Grief has unlocked memories from my earliest childhood. Grief has sharpened my senses and caused me to feel more deeply. Grief is a burden that at times feels like I can barely carry.  It has been a constant companion and an unyielding teacher.

Since being thrust into this grieving process, I have been interested in what those who have walked this path before me have discovered.  Stephen Colbert spoke vulnerably about his loss.  When Colbert, the youngest of eleven children, was ten years old, his father took two of his older brothers up to New England for boarding school.  Their flight went down and all three perished. Four decades later, the loss is still with him, but it has changed:

"...it's not as keen.  Well, it's not as present, how about that? It's just as keen but not

as present.  But it will always accept the invitation.  Grief will always accept

the invitation to appear.  It's got plenty of time for you....

The interesting thing about grief, I think, is that it is its own size.  It is not the

size of you.  It is its own size.  And grief comes to you.  You know what I mean?

I've always liked that phrase "He was visited by grief," because that's really what

it is.  Grief is its own thing.  It's not like it's in me and I'm going to deal with it. 

It's a thing, and you have to be okay with its presence.  If you try to ignore it, it 

will be like a wolf at your door."

I am being visited by grief.  It's not a living part of me, but grief is here.  It's pressing in, it is it's own size.  It is it's own entity and it is with me.

Vicki Harrison, who was visited by grief when the man she loved was killed while riding his motorcycle, wrote:

"...it's really exhausting.  I'm trying, still, to keep track of that one thing a day that makes me smile, is the best part, but even that's difficult right now.  I think I did it for Monday and Tuesday, and I think I have one for today.  But I am just so damn sad right now....

Grief is like the ocean, it comes in waves, ebbing and flowing.  
Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming.  
All we can do is learn to swim...."

I am learning that grief takes time.  Sometimes, when I am in the midst of it, surrounded by it, I wish I could hurry it, fix it, comfort myself and make it go away....feel something else besides that pain in my chest, but grief takes time.

As the year has marched on grief has taken different forms in the changing seasons.  As the temperature has dropped, the leaves have turned and December approaches I am surprised at how the memories that weren't as acute in the heat of July become sharp once again.  Memories that were in the back of my mind are now in the forefront.  I was driving in the car the other day and the memory of calling my Grandfather, my mom's dad, and telling him that she was gone played out scene by scene.  About a month ago, I was helping my youngest daughter with her hair as she was getting ready for school.  She said, "Mom, I've been thinking a lot about Grandma lately and I just feel sad." She told me that in her choir class at school they had started singing Christmas songs to prepare for the holiday performances and the first day all she could do was to keep breathing and not cry.

Last year at this time we had just returned from a family trip to Disneyland with my siblings and my mom.  She was a trooper.  She spent a week walking around several theme parks in Southern California with her kids and her grand-kids.  Then she was off to South Carolina to spend Thanksgiving with my brother and his family.  None of us could guess as December came and we celebrated the holidays that it would be the last time.  That she would not be with us to usher in the New Year.

Grief is, as Colbert says, a thing.  Right now it is an acute thing.  There has not been a day that I don't think about her, about that day, about how I am changed and how certain days are gone forever. Someday, I trust, that sifting through these memories will not be quite as painful as it is now.

Tips for Starting Therapy

The decision to start therapy can be intimidating.  For most individuals, there are some preconceived ideas about what therapy will entail and what therapists are like.  And, lets be honest, the media rarely paints an accurate picture of the therapy process.
GETTING STARTED
There are a couple of points to consider in getting started in the therapy process.  First, engaging fully in the therapy process is important.  This is also hard to do.  Change is hard.  Awareness is hard.  Rigorous honesty is hard.  And these are all pivotal parts of engaging fully in therapy. Sometimes things can feel like they're getting worse before they get better.  As a client, you are not just paying to be listened to and validated.  Your therapist is not a paid friend.  While being listened to is an important part of the therapy process, listening alone will not affect the change most clients are seeking.  Therapists have masters and doctorate degrees, they receive specialized training and certification.  Therapists have spent years studying human behavior, the process of change, relationship dynamics, conflict resolution, attachment and trauma wounds, addiction and communication.  It will be important for you to find a therapist who you  can have a connection with, who stays current with their training and expertise and who you can trust to walk you through the difficult and sometimes painful pathways of healing and self exploration.  Therapy is an art.  It's a lot more than just telling people what to do or what not to do.  The therapists who are good at what they do have spent time mastering the art of helping clients own their journey.  Therapists are trained to meet you where you are and work to facilitate insight and create an environment for growth and healing.
Therapy can be expensive, ranging anywhere from $80-$200 for a 50 minute session.  It's an investment and you should get a return on your investment.  However, this will take time.  Remember there are other things that we value that are expensive that we don't question spending money on, such as an attorney, a dentist or medication.  Therapy is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself.  It's an investment in you.
DOING THE WORK
There are words and phrases in therapy that you will become familiar with.  These include sit with that, do the work, set and maintain healthy boundaries, projection, trauma bonds, enmeshment, living within limits, seek consultation, lean in, notice that and the list goes on.  Whether we are talking mind, body or spirit, healing is not pleasant and it rarely feels good.  This is important to remember as you embark on this journey.
When my younger brother was 18 years old, he and a couple of friends were playing with fire one night.  It was the week between Christmas and New Years and was a continuation of something that had started earlier that Summer, as they tried to rid the basketball pole of a wasp nest.  He was at a friends house, whose parents were not home at the time.  They were video taping the lighting of various objects on fire and watching, mesmerized as these items would burn.   As can happen with teens who believe they are invincible, they kept upping the ante and added gasoline to the mix in order to maximize the effect.  Unbeknownst to my brother, as he was dousing something with alcohol prior to lighting it on fire, the gasoline was also dripping onto his clothing.  My mom received a phone call  a few minutes later from my brother asking her to pick him up and take him to the Emergency Room.
My husband and I arrived at the hospital about an hour later and spent the next week making daily trips to the burn unit to visit with my brother.  The first night seemed the worst.  He was in so much pain, it was something you could feel as you entered the room.  Slowly over the next few days, we saw gradual progress: he would sit up, talk, open his eyes, make a joke.  We thought these were all good signs of healing.  The doctors however, informed the family not to put any stock in these improvements.  That the focus at this time was to get him strong enough for skin graft surgery.  That once he was stable enough for surgery, the surgery would put any progress we were witnessing back to square one.  The night after the surgery, we went to visit him at the hospital.  He really wasn't strong enough for a visit and didn't do much talking at all.  He was in too much pain to even open his eyes, let alone communicate.  This began a slow healing process that wasn't complete for about two years and had a lot of painful moments along the way.  It has been 20 years since that injury occurred.  My brother is married, has kids of his own and a thriving law practice.  You can still see the scars on his legs from the burns and the grafts.  My kids and his like to hear him tell the story.  It definitely shaped who he is today, knowing such pain, healing and growth.  As painful as the surgery was and as long as the healing process was, not having the surgery was not an option. A third-degree burn is referred to as a full thickness burn.  This type of burn destroys the outer layer of skin and the entire layer beneath. Large third-degree burns heal slowly and poorly without medical attention.  Because the epidermis and hair follicles are destroyed, the new skin heals slowly and if not treated properly can impair function and leave the skin without plasticity and movement.
It can be tempting during the therapy process to look for a bypass...an alternate route. This can happen for motorists to avoid other heavy traffic points or to drive around an obstruction. When commuting, a bypass is convenient and is looked upon favorably.  However, in therapy looking for a bypass is avoiding the possibility for self-transformation.  It's avoiding the difficult work that awaits us.  Yes, often times there is painful stuff to sort through in therapy.  We have to explore and examine difficult parts of ourselves and of our lives.  We have to be open to the existence of patterns that aren't pretty, decisions that should not have been made and choices we didn't understand.  We can find any number of ways to bypass and get creative about avoiding.  We can use sex, relationships, drama, work, technology, shopping, traveling and Netflix as ways to bypass the work that we need to do.  We can exhaust ourselves thinking that maybe if I am successful at work or make a certain amount of money or always look fashionable in my dress or find that special someone, or an exciting trip it will make up for the feeling that I am inadequate or don't know who I am or wonder if I truly am enough.  Spirituality is another way we can bypass; hoping to be able to pray it away, read scriptures for insight rather than walking through our own pain, going to temple as a way of bypassing what awaits us.  It can also be tempting to become extremely obedient and religiously regimented as a way of bypassing self-examination and binding God into our will because of our extreme obedience. While we may have many spiritual and moving moments as we engage in treatment, these moments do not exempt us from doing the hard work of examining, transforming and evolving.  The ACA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) workbook states regarding spiritual bypass: "the person is attempting to avoid the pain that can come with working through the trauma and neglect from childhood.  In some cases, the person attempts to jump ahead in the recovery  process without going through the entire process.  This path invariably fails or leads to dissatisfying results.  If one does succeed in having a spiritual experience, but avoids program work, the person can still remain mired in addictiveness or problematic relationships.  The spiritual experience may bring some form of enlightenment; however, the person can cling to old ways of living without embracing recovery.  A spiritual experience without grounded program work can produce an unhealthy ego.  With an inflated ego, the person can use the spiritual experience as a shield against working a full program" (page. 178-179).
Therapy is hard.  It can feel overwhelming to begin the process and there may be points along the way where we question why we started in the first place.  Therapy is also the beginning of investing in yourself as a person and in the life you are living. Beautiful things happen in therapy.  Transformation happens in therapy.  Healing and growth happen in therapy.  If you've considered starting this journey for yourself, find a qualified therapist that you can connect with and trust and make that investment.  

Life After Ashley Madison

When the infidelity site Ashley Madison was hacked, the details of 37 million user accounts were published on the Internet. Personal information like email addresses, account details and credit card information was released. Impact Team, the group that hacked the site and released the information, gave two motivations for doing so: First, they were critical of Ashley Madison's core mission of facilitating affairs and second, the hackers attacked the business practices of Ashley Madison.
What the hackers also released was panic, devastation, heartbreak and grief. The effects of this scandal are far reaching and certainly impact more than the 37 million paying members of this site.

If you or a loved one has been impacted by this breach, life has become unmanageable. The data is out and the fantasy of secrecy the site promised its users has crumbled. The Internet has once again shown that it cannot be trusted with our secrets. The following points are stepping stones for navigating the fall out and recovering hope:

• WAKE UP:  A crisis like this is a wake-up call about sexual patterns and can be an opportunity for further reflection and growth. Many individuals who are on the site can't fully explain why they did what they did. 
• BEWARE OF SHAME:  Shame is a constant awareness of our flaws, defects and imperfections. Shame is not the same as guilt. Shame is different in that it makes a person feel bad about who they are whereas guilt makes an individual feel bad about what they did. Adults shamed in childhood fear intimacy and tend to avoid real commitment in relationships. Commitment is a recovery principle and is important to the repair needed to move forward. Being able to challenge your shameful messages while also allowing yourself to feel appropriate guilt will help build self-awareness and compassion for the hurt you have caused. Adults shamed in childhood also tend to blame other people before they can accept any blame themselves. Accepting responsibility, owning up to the damage you've done and the hurt you've created allows you to be part of the solution. If you do not accept blame, it will only get worse    for  you as your life goes on and the intricate patterns of avoiding responsibility build. 
• START TALKING:   Now that the secret is out, it's time to get to work. For repairs to be made, the straying partner must work to show empathy and remorse. This is going to take time. It will be necessary to acknowledge the hurt and pain you caused as often as needed. Finding out a partner is on Ashley Madison may be the first time a spouse realizes the partner may not be happy and the relationship has problems. It is a good idea to seek professional help to walk through the difficult conversations and tackle the work that lies ahead. 
• CONNECT WITH REALITY:  The reality is you cheated. Whether you met the person you were contacting and actually had sex or viewed profiles, sent texts or emails and exchanged photos, the fact is this behavior is viewed as cheating. While you may feel the problems in your relationship or the stress in your life made you stray, the reality is there are others out there with similar problems who don't do what you did. 
• SEEK TREATMENT:  According to Rob Weiss, author and expert on digitally driven intimacy disorders, "when your sexual behavior is more in control of your time, decisions, fantasy and impulses than you are, treatment is advisable. Likewise, if loved ones knew the full extent of your secret sexual life and would be shocked or concerned, or if you live in fear of being "discovered", treatment is advisable. You may also want to consider treatment if you can't stop having the amount or type of sex that you know could harm your relationships, career, family life and reputation."  Many individuals struggling with infidelity or compulsive sexual behaviors experienced childhood trauma, neglect, abuse or loss and use sexual acting out as a way to cope with the painful emotions. 

If you have been impacted by this breach, you can take an anonymous, self-assessment for an objective view of the situation. For issues of sexual addiction, seeking a professional who is trained and certified as a sexual addiction therapist is important for both you and your spouse.


Jackie Pack, LCSW, CSAT-S

I Wasn't Ready to Say Goodbye

A little over a month ago my mom passed away unexpectedly. It was December 30, 2014. She was planning to have a sleepover with her grandkids that night. It was just a regular day and I had no idea the twist that was about to happen. I called my mom from work at 2:00 to tell her that my kids would be a little late for the sleepover. Just 15 minutes late. We talked on the phone for 5-10 minutes about nothing in particular. I had no idea that by 3:00pm she would be found unconscious in her home by my younger brother.  He called 911 but she never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead at 3:54pm.
My mom and I had a complicated relationship. We didn't always see eye to eye. We had our ups and downs but over the past two years we were making peace with each other and learning to see past our differences. I don't have regrets about the path our relationship took. It was what it was.
As I left the hospital and was driving home the words of the song from Les Miserables came to my mind: "to love another person is to see the face of God".  I believe that it is easy to love somebody when they are lovely. But to have love for somebody who has let you down, hurt you, disappointed you and fallen short of who you wanted them to be...who you needed them to be...well I think that is Godly. It is Godly because it is so much bigger than me, than her, than what was and what wasn't. And I can accept that. My mom didn't have an easy life.  She did the best she could, but was hurt by many things...mostly my dad and the loss of what she hoped to have. And as the saying goes "hurt people, hurt people."
Thomas Merton in his book No Man is an Island says "The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image.  If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them."
It has been a long and difficult month since her passing. I have found that sadness is a familiar companion. There's a game I find myself playing. I pretend that I can replay special days of my life. Certain characteristics show through as I flip through my favorite memories of my mom....the image of her walking towards me with a chair to join me on the sideline of my girls soccer game. Her recounting endless details of a story that aren't all that important. Her curiosity and love of learning. Watching her write in her journal or talking about books we both had read. It is so easy for me to play back some of my fondest memories. When I play this game, it reminds me that no matter how good those memories were, certain moments are gone forever. When I was a girl, I watched my mom and adopted the bits and pieces of her that fit me.  The talks and struggles we have had through this journey of our lives together have a great deal to do with the values I cherish as an adult and the person I have become. I truly believe that nothing in this life is wasted. Leaving the hospital that night, I felt like I could let go of so much and walk away with the memories I choose to keep of her.
Love is complicated, and yet our job is to love others without stopping to question whether or not they are worthy of that love. It's not our judgment to make. What we are asked to do is to love. To soften ourselves, our hurts and disappointments and to love. It is a life saving pursuit.
I love you mom!